James Halstead

Council Member

James Halstead currently heads up the Translation Department of Dals, one of the UK’s fasted growing LSPs.  He is also a Chinese>English translator, holding Chartered Linguist status with the Chartered Institute of Linguists.

Previously James acted as General Manager at IMD Translation, a UK renowned legal-focused specialist LSP, and prior to that managed the China office and Greater China market for UK based LSP thebigword.

Before venturing into the translation and localisation sector James served extensively in the UK Government’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Developments Office China Network at both the British Consulate General in Shanghai and the British Embassy in Beijing, excelling in the UK Civil Service FCDO’s Mandarin Chinese language examination.

Hailing from West Yorkshire he graduated from the University of Leeds in Chinese, has served on the secretariat and advisory board of the Association for Speakers of Chinese as a Second Language and also serving a tenure as co-Chair from 2018 to 2020, as a sector advocate, acted as an external consultant to start up and community based LSPs working in the charity sector, and, in younger days, was an avid practitioner of Wing Chun kung fu and Go-Shin Ryu Jujitsu.

He loves chocolate, hates onions, enjoys painting tabletop minis, is deeply fascinated by linguistic anthropology and the rich tapestry of global history and geopolitics, and has a music taste firmly set in the ’80s.